| In The Sweet Remnants of Summer, as in the other books in the series, there are references to Jamie’s musical career. Living with a musician, Isabel would hardly be unaware of his taste in music, which, fortunately, very much matches her own. She attends his concerts whenever possible, and generally enjoys them, even if there are occasions when the choice of pieces played suits neither of them. After all, as a professional musician, Jamie has to play what he is told to play, and not every musician enjoys everything that he or she is obliged to perform.
But what pieces of music do they enjoy listening to when it is entirely up to them? Let’s start with Jamie. He is, of course, a bassoonist, and the piano is his secondary instrument (he is actually quite a good pianist). He can also play the clarinet – when pushed – although not to the standard required for public performance. He has a soft spot, too, for the alto recorder, an instrument that he feels is particularly suited to early music. “The recorder gets a bad press,” Jamie once said, “because people hear the soprano recorder being played by children and write it off as a glorified whistle. It is anything but that.”
Jamie enjoys bassoon arrangements of pieces written for other instruments. But he does not need a bassoon part in pieces to which he likes to listen. His taste is broad, and ranges from contemporary to the renaissance music. He enjoys opera, especially by nineteenth century Italian composers. He will take any opportunity to attend a performance of those old favourites Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. He can listen to Puccini for hours, he says. The Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly makes him go weak at the knees, he says. Big softie, says Isabel. And then there is Una furtiva lagrima from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. “Who can listen to that without crying?” Jamie asks. And then answers his own question, “Not me.”
But it’s not all romantic music. Jamie enjoys anything by The Penguin Café Orchestra, a hard-to-classify group of musicians with a wide following. Music for a Found Harmonium, one of their most famous pieces, is, in Jamie’s view, irresistible.
As for Isabel, she is particularly fond of Mozart. She likes Mozart operas, and in Cosi fan Tutte she finds her absolutely favourite piece of music, the trio Soave sia il vento. Jamie agrees with her about that – he likes it too, even if he does not listen to it quite as often as Isabel does. “This is simply the most beautiful piece of music ever written,” Isabel says. “And look at the words –may the breeze that takes you off on your journey be a gentle one. What kinder sentiment can one imagine than that?”
Another piece of music that Isabel can listen to regularly without ever tiring of it is In Paradisum from Faure’s Requiem. In one of the earlier books in the series, she hears that at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh and is much moved by it.
Sometimes Jamie and Isabel will listen to a piece of music while cooking in the kitchen of their house in Edinburgh. Most recently, when he was cooking and Isabel was sitting at the table with a glass of New Zealand white wine before her, Jamie played Peter Maxwell Davies’ Orkney Wedding with Sunrise. They listened in silence to the final section, with its gorgeous combination of orchestra and bagpipes. Nothing was said. Then Jamie said, “Well”. Isabel looked thoughtful. Then she said, “Yes.” She thought of the Orkney islands, in all their beauty, and Scotland too. Such places fill the heart, as music does, so easily and so completely.
Alexander McCall Smith |
